Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Well I'm officially overwhelmed with schoolwork and all the stuff I'm doing. So naturally I decide to blog. Specifically, I'm setting a goal for myself to blog once per week. We'll see if it keeps up.

It's birthday time right now. Last weekend Drew and I went to KC to celebrate his mom's birthday. Technically, her birthday was more than a week ago, but she and Drew's dad went to St. John's. So jealous. Anyway, we ate at Blue Koi (which has like the best dumplings ever!). Then we watched the KU-K-state game and drove home, where I made Snickerdoodle cupcakes. See, I've made a variation before for my Fourth of July baking bonanza. But I'd never made Martha's version, and I think we all know how much I like Martha's recipes. This was also my first baked item using the beater blade, a special mixer attachment for my KitchenAid that scrapes the edges of the bowl while it's mixing. I can't tell you how excited I was to get this! Originally I bought it on a trip to Nebraska Furniture Mart after lunch with Tara, but I managed to buy one that didn't fit my machine. Judging from a bin of opened and discounted mixers, a lot of other people have too. But yes, I get unnaturally excited about attachments for my mixer. ANYWAY, Weston has been bugging me about snickerdoodle cupcakes forever, but I don't really like carrying cupcakes around campus, so only wanted to bring them up on a Sunday. The recipe calls for some weird meringue-like frosting, but I'm more of a buttercream type of lady, so I went with a cinnamon buttercream frosting instead. The finished product, which are light and fluffy because you beat the hell out of the butter for the batter, actually include five sticks of buttter between the cakes and frosting. That's why they tasted SO good. Butter makes everything better. Drew really liked them, as did Weston, and also Drew's roommate.

I was definitely late to my class Monday. I think it's going to be one of those weeks. It's a class where you have to get there right at 9 a.m. and take a quiz. If you're late, you get 1 out of 5 points for writing down your name. I'm always super tired, though, and often get bored. Traffic was naturally bad and I got behind two super slow vehicles on the way to campus, so got up to campus at like 8:59. So I just didn't go. Apparently I've entered the close-to-completely-apathetic stage of my senior year. Grades don't matter, right? ;) No, I know they do. But sometimes productivity rules. This morning, sleep ruled. I skipped my second class of the semester, during which apparently we didn't even do what we were supposed to. Sigh. I'm currently researching an in-depth project, assigning out projects for our yearbook and interning at the local paper.

I'm noticing this is leaving very little time. Naturally, last night I filled that time with baking a new recipe. My friend Emily pointed out the blog Smitten Kitchen to me, specifically this peanut butter brownie. It's kind of a cakey-blondieish brownie. Lots of peanut butter and chocolate chips. On top is a dark chocolate ganache (I made double what they said; didn't use it all but definitely liked it with more than the recipe called for). So I brought these in to the newsroom today, and I think my pan literally got mobbed. Taylor had to hold it up high above everyone so I could cut them. I think it's safe to say people liked them, and I got my professional blog photographer, Tanner Grubbs, to take the photo again mid-pan.

My next project is going to be for Drew's birthday, which is this Friday. He turns 23. We're all going out, obviously. His mom made him cookie cake, a holiday staple at their house. So I'm considering making (or attempting to make) ice cream cake. Drew only reads sports blogs so I'm safe to say that on here. But if you know him, don't tell him. I'm thinking of getting his favorite ice cream combo from Cold Stone (cake batter with cookie dough mixed in) and putting it with some kind of cake, although I'm not what flavor to make the cake part of it. I'm going to have to research how to make this kind of thing too. If I can't figure it out, I guess we'll eat ice cream with cookie dough AND cake chunks mixed in.